Here is the “275 smiles” video interview which accompanies the Tyra Banks cover story published in the New York Times Magazine on June 1, 2008. Supermodel, entrepreneur, host of her own program, “The Tyra Banks Show” and host of “America’s Next Top Model,” Tyra Banks makes the point, both in the interview and in the magazine profile that both she and the rigors of her profession have sometimes been underestimated.

Like her hero, Martha Stewart, Banks wants, most of all, for her name to immediately suggest a distinct point of view. Her brand, like her trademark “tough but still smiling” smile, is consistent in all her shows: serious about the frivolous; empathetic and empowering; and always, always aimed at young women, across all races. It’s girly TV with a punch. Banks asked Hillary Clinton about her body image (“Does Senator Hillary Clinton look in the mirror and go, ‘I want it to be better’?”), her first date with Bill and her ambition to change the world. She played basketball with Barack Obama but also asked him to gaze into a crystal ball and tell her what he saw in his future (he said “the White House”). And while the contestants on “Top Model” may only long to be famous, Banks chides and lectures them (while wearing a low-cut dress) about having a strong work ethic and the vagaries of the fashion business. Banks understands that her audience — which is young and therefore coveted by advertisers — wants both to identify with her and to be inspired, and she has cast herself as their role model/teacher/fun friend.

Banks is not unconditional in her affection for the girls in her audience — she expects them (especially on “Top Model”) to apply themselves with vigor and to follow her example. It is not an accident that Banks posed with a sharp-looking cane in the last series of “Top Model” print ads and that her favorite word is “fierce.” Her message of optimism, reinforced by a heavy dose of discipline, has given her show one of the youngest demographics in daytime television. While about half of the viewers that Oprah attracts are 50 and older, 65 percent of Banks’s are under 50, and she especially embraces and influences a particular sector — young girls from high school to age 34. Both “Top Model” and “The Tyra Banks Show” are consistently near the top of that category and attract more than 13 million total viewers weekly, a larger overall audience than, say, “The View” or “Late Show With David Letterman.”

“I have to admit, I didn’t really expect her to have this kind of drive or creative ability,” said Leslie Moonves, the president and chief executive of the CBS Corporation, a parent company, along with Warner Brothers, of the CW network. “But I realized what a great producer she was when my daughter, who was then in college and is my best focus group, told me that ‘Top Model’ was her favorite show. I underestimated Tyra. I think we all did.”

Banks is strangely attracted to this sort of adversity. “I love being underestimated,” she said as Oscar James, her hairstylist, carefully arranged her reddish-brown curls. Like many models, Banks often wears wigs, and her hairstyles change shape and color daily from, among other looks, a brunette schoolgirl ponytail to a long blond fall with bangs to streaked Farrah Fawcett-style wings. “I love when they think, Oh, she’s just a model, she’s going to sit there and do nothing,” Banks continued. “When I was a model, my biggest obstacle was that I was black and curvy. When I went into producing, my biggest obstacle was that I was a model. But, as I say to the girls on ‘Top Model,’ anybody who is at the top of anything has taken risks and withstood criticism and hardship. I say: ‘You think I’m just a model? Well, then, let me show you.’ ”

Source: Tyra Banks - Banksable - New York Times Magazine

Video: Tyra Banks New York Times Interview 6-1-08